I reported 10 days ago on the police beating handed out to Belarus editor Natalia Radzina. Though rescued by friends at the time, she was subsequently arrested.

Now there are reports of her suffering from ill-treatment in jail. According to a lawyer who visited her in jail, her ears were bleeding. Radzina, left, is charged with organising mass riots, a charge related to the protests by thousands of people in Minsk on 19 December against the allegedly rigged re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko's.

Radzina, editor-in-chief of Charter97.org, was arrested along with all her co-workers at the website's editorial offices.

In the latest move by the authorities, a warrant has been issued for the arrest of former journalist Nikolai Khalezin, co-founder of the Belarus Free Theatre. He has gone into hiding.

The theatre is a high-profile thorn in the side of Lukashenko's authoritarian regime.

Before launching the theatre, Khalezin was a renowned journalist who was fired from various newspapers for articles criticising Lukashenko. He was also a mentor to Radzina and Oleg Bebenin, who was found dead in suspicious circumstances three months before the elections.

At present, 23 people are under detention by the Belarus KGB. They include presidential candidates Andrei Sannikov and Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu.